carcano reciever won't recieve

[nekshot]

I am trying to blacken a carcano reciever and a replacement barrel with laurel mountain browning solution. After 3 applications the barrel is a perfect matte black and the reciever looks like a brown mottled blackish mess. Prep was sanded with 220 grit. I can always bail myself out with paint but I would like to learn whats going on. I imagine its the composition of the metal in the reciever. Any ideas that might work?

[aspangler]

The metal in the wartime Carcano's was a hodge-podge of alloys. They were strong enough for the cartridge they fired but the alloy sucked. The only way I can tell you would be to polish it back down and hot blue after an acid pickle bath. I don't know if this will work or not but it has worked for me in the past. Not always but sometimes.

[lefty o]

warm the reciever and solution up a little then apply.

[MtGun44]

Probably due to heat treated surface, and also may have a lot of nickel or chrome in the
alloy, which will not react to your chemicals like iron alloys will. Try an alternate
bluing system, or use one of the fancy "gun paints".

Despite all the baloney about their quality, Carcanos are a decent quality gun.
Most of the folks that slam them never owned one or if they did, only shot the worthless
Norma ammo in them. I have shot 2" to 3" groups with original Italian surplus ammo and
then shot a 20+ inch "group" with the worthless Norma ammo which has undersized
bullets. Many of the stories about these guns is due to that trash ammo - which
is really surprising, since most Norma stuff is top drawer. They really blew it with
the Carcano ammo - used .264 bullets, as normal for the Scandanavian 6.5s, but
the Carcano needs .268 bullets, so the Norma ammo isn't even worth shooting. Pull
the bullets and replace them.

With proper ammo, Carcanos are about as accurate as the average military rifle of the
era - but I am NOT a fan of the Italian sighting system used on many versions.

Bill

[nekshot]

I epoxied it. Yup, as long as the masses don't know a carcano can have the slickest trigger of milsurps and all the host of neat little cartridges that work in them I am ok with their ignorance!